Villisca couple happy to escape tornado alive

A farmer and his wife who live near Villisca are thankful to have their lives after a storm ripped through their property Monday evening. Darrel Herzberg and his wife Mavis were home when the storm hit.

"It was just a sudden thing in less than probably a minute and it was through with whatever came through…probably a tornado," Herzberg says. The chimney is missing on the house and damage is quite heavy elsewhere on his property.

Herzberg says, "I lost one barn and a machine shed. I had a tractor in there. There’s very little damage on it. And the machine shed had a combine and it has some damage. It took the roof off of one grain bin that had some corn in it. I’ll just deliver that corn to the grain elevator, I’ve got to get it out of there, because if it rains it’ll get wet."

Herzberg says the machine shed had a couple of smaller sheds on the side are all gone. He says the machine shed is "completely wrecked." The machine shed housed a combine that has minimal damage and will be usable. Many trees in his wind break of about a dozen evergreen trees north of the property are either completely knocked down or damaged.

Spotters reported that the tornado on the ground northwest of Villisca where it picked up some livestock handling equipment and set it into the traveled portion of the roadway.

Norris says there were signs damage in the little town of Tenville just north of Villisca on Highway 71. One home reported loss of windows, but no homes were lost. Norris says other reports are still coming in today from the Stanton area. He encourages residents that unless you’re a trained storm spotter, don’t go out and watch the storm.

"Unless you’re a trained weather spotter, I highly suggest not doing that, there are people trained to spot. There’s plenty of time afterward when the weather has calmed down and the system has passed to go assess the damage, but you certainly don’t want to go out while there’s an active [weather] pattern in the area," Norris says. Norris says no injuries were reported.